In a typical turbine engine, air is compressed, then mixed with a fuel, and the resulting mixture is ignited in a combustor so that the expanding gases of combustion can rapidly move across and thus rotate turbine blades. The fuel can be liquid or gaseous and the turbine can be an axial flow or a radial in-flow type. Such turbine engines can be used for industrial power or moving an airplane or ground vehicle. Variable or fixed turbine vanes direct the expanding gases from the combustor to the rotatable turbine blades.
While various types of turbine engine designs have been used in the prior art, there are numerous disadvantages and great need for improvement. Thus, many of the prior art turbine engines have combustors that experience temperature peaks, also known as hot spots, which reduce the fuel efficiency of the engine by requiring additional cooling air for cooling of the turbine vanes. This is usually a result of the nozzle design which sprays a fuel and air mixture into the combustor for ignition. In addition, many of these prior art turbine engines operate at very high temperatures, requiring high strength and high temperature-resistant alloys which are very expensive. Moreover, many of these turbine engines require a very long combustor which increases the materials and costs for the engine. Finally, many of these prior art turbine engines require (but do not optimize) the variation of the mixing of fuel and air depending upon the power requirements of the engine which differ during off design engine operation at low power, high power, and starting.
Examples of such prior art turbine engines are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,471,892 issued to Price; 2,946,185 issued to Bayer; 4,005,572 issued to Giffhorn; 4,100,733 issued to Striebel et al; and 4,195,476 issued to Wood.